Well, that's a comforting thought (I'm sure your the life of parties and other such social functions).

I'm pretty much talking about domesticated animals like dogs and cats and goldfish. Not so much deer and elk and that kind of beast.

Animals do have souls and we will see them again when we die and go to Heaven. They will meet us on the rainbow bridge. I have seen images of my dead loved ones holding their beloved pets from behind the grave. This is indisputable. We not only live on after death, but so do our beloved pets, because nothing that is loved can ever truly die.

I agree too, to a point. I like what a (RC) nun told me when I was 9; my parents had just had my dog (whom I called my "brother" since he was my best friend) "put to sleep" (why do parents lie to their kids? I was afraid to go to sleep for weeks after that), and I was sitting on our front porch, crying.

A nun walked by (in traditional habit, no less...this was the late 1960s), saw me crying, and sat down next to me to ask me what was wrong. I told her, and gthen I asked her, "Will my dog go to heaven?"

At the time I didn't yet know that the traditional RCC teaches that animals do not have souls, but this nun said to me, "In Heaven we are supremely happy. If you need your dog to be supremely happy in Heaven, God will make sure he is there"

I never forgot her telling me that...I just wish her church agreed with her on that. I find a lot of Catholics feel as she does, and as you (Robb) do; yet the church teaches the exact opposite. An Orthodox friend (also an animal lover) suspects the reason why the traditional RCC was so hostile to animals and so insistent that man was superior, animals didn't matter, etc was due, ironically, to the influence of Calvinism on Roman Catholicism....which was a new thought for me.

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"O God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, our brothers the animals to whom Thou gavest the earth as their home in common with us..." (from the Prayer of St Basil the Great)

When I was a young lad of 3 or 4 I had a snow-white dog that I loved. My parents being very creative, they named him snowy. One day snowy ran away. However, my parents, wanting to protect me from this oh so cruel world, told me that he'd come back some day. So I waited, and time slowly passed, as is its wont. 8 years old. 9 years old. 10 years old. Nothing. Eventually I realised that Snowy wasn't coming back. (I also realised that I was gullible and dumb, but that's another post). Somehow, with a lot of therapy--both talk and drugs--I somehow made it through somehow. So, moral of the story? You might never see your pet again. You'll get over it.

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"Christian America is finally waking up to what fraternities and biker gangs have known for years: hazing works!"

Well, that's a comforting thought (I'm sure your the life of parties and other such social functions).

I'm pretty much talking about domesticated animals like dogs and cats and goldfish. Not so much deer and elk and that kind of beast.

Animals do have souls and we will see them again when we die and go to Heaven. They will meet us on the rainbow bridge. I have seen images of my dead loved ones holding their beloved pets from behind the grave. This is indisputable. We not only live on after death, but so do our beloved pets, because nothing that is loved can ever truly die.

I agree too, to a point. I like what a (RC) nun told me when I was 9; my parents had just had my dog (whom I called my "brother" since he was my best friend) "put to sleep" (why do parents lie to their kids? I was afraid to go to sleep for weeks after that), and I was sitting on our front porch, crying.

A nun walked by (in traditional habit, no less...this was the late 1960s), saw me crying, and sat down next to me to ask me what was wrong. I told her, and gthen I asked her, "Will my dog go to heaven?"

At the time I didn't yet know that the traditional RCC teaches that animals do not have souls, but this nun said to me, "In Heaven we are supremely happy. If you need your dog to be supremely happy in Heaven, God will make sure he is there"

I never forgot her telling me that...I just wish her church agreed with her on that. I find a lot of Catholics feel as she does, and as you (Robb) do; yet the church teaches the exact opposite. An Orthodox friend (also an animal lover) suspects the reason why the traditional RCC was so hostile to animals and so insistent that man was superior, animals didn't matter, etc was due, ironically, to the influence of Calvinism on Roman Catholicism....which was a new thought for me.

I've never run into any such nonsense as you all are discussing here. I think you have some kind of bugs in your bonnets and I don't know if they are from heaven or not...

But I was always told that animals do not have human souls...But they are animated by the Holy Spirit just like I am only in a human way. And we don't know really what will happen to our pets but that we cannot rule out that they will be with us in heaven.

Well, that's a comforting thought (I'm sure your the life of parties and other such social functions).

I'm pretty much talking about domesticated animals like dogs and cats and goldfish. Not so much deer and elk and that kind of beast.

Animals do have souls and we will see them again when we die and go to Heaven. They will meet us on the rainbow bridge. I have seen images of my dead loved ones holding their beloved pets from behind the grave. This is indisputable. We not only live on after death, but so do our beloved pets, because nothing that is loved can ever truly die.

I agree too, to a point. I like what a (RC) nun told me when I was 9; my parents had just had my dog (whom I called my "brother" since he was my best friend) "put to sleep" (why do parents lie to their kids? I was afraid to go to sleep for weeks after that), and I was sitting on our front porch, crying.

A nun walked by (in traditional habit, no less...this was the late 1960s), saw me crying, and sat down next to me to ask me what was wrong. I told her, and gthen I asked her, "Will my dog go to heaven?"

At the time I didn't yet know that the traditional RCC teaches that animals do not have souls, but this nun said to me, "In Heaven we are supremely happy. If you need your dog to be supremely happy in Heaven, God will make sure he is there"

I never forgot her telling me that...I just wish her church agreed with her on that. I find a lot of Catholics feel as she does, and as you (Robb) do; yet the church teaches the exact opposite. An Orthodox friend (also an animal lover) suspects the reason why the traditional RCC was so hostile to animals and so insistent that man was superior, animals didn't matter, etc was due, ironically, to the influence of Calvinism on Roman Catholicism....which was a new thought for me.

I've never run into any such nonsense as you all are discussing here. I think you have some kind of bugs in your bonnets and I don't know if they are from heaven or not...

But I was always told that animals do not have human souls...But they are animated by the Holy Spirit just like I am only in a human way. And we don't know really what will happen to our pets but that we cannot rule out that they will be with us in heaven.

Well, that's a comforting thought (I'm sure your the life of parties and other such social functions).

I'm pretty much talking about domesticated animals like dogs and cats and goldfish. Not so much deer and elk and that kind of beast.

Animals do have souls and we will see them again when we die and go to Heaven. They will meet us on the rainbow bridge. I have seen images of my dead loved ones holding their beloved pets from behind the grave. This is indisputable. We not only live on after death, but so do our beloved pets, because nothing that is loved can ever truly die.

I agree too, to a point. I like what a (RC) nun told me when I was 9; my parents had just had my dog (whom I called my "brother" since he was my best friend) "put to sleep" (why do parents lie to their kids? I was afraid to go to sleep for weeks after that), and I was sitting on our front porch, crying.

A nun walked by (in traditional habit, no less...this was the late 1960s), saw me crying, and sat down next to me to ask me what was wrong. I told her, and gthen I asked her, "Will my dog go to heaven?"

At the time I didn't yet know that the traditional RCC teaches that animals do not have souls, but this nun said to me, "In Heaven we are supremely happy. If you need your dog to be supremely happy in Heaven, God will make sure he is there"

I never forgot her telling me that...I just wish her church agreed with her on that. I find a lot of Catholics feel as she does, and as you (Robb) do; yet the church teaches the exact opposite. An Orthodox friend (also an animal lover) suspects the reason why the traditional RCC was so hostile to animals and so insistent that man was superior, animals didn't matter, etc was due, ironically, to the influence of Calvinism on Roman Catholicism....which was a new thought for me.

I've never run into any such nonsense as you all are discussing here. I think you have some kind of bugs in your bonnets and I don't know if they are from heaven or not...

But I was always told that animals do not have human souls...But they are animated by the Holy Spirit just like I am only in a human way. And we don't know really what will happen to our pets but that we cannot rule out that they will be with us in heaven.

Soul = life.

In addition the history of the concept of an immortal soul is a very interesting one. I don't know if anyone [in the Catholic Christian tradition] has ever argued anything so silly as the idea that animals have NO souls at all. The question seems to arise with the concept of the immortality of the human soul.

Metropolitan Kallistos was once asked if he thought animals would be in Heaven. He replied that he couldn't see why not, since they were also in Paradise.

He has also said:

‘A new heaven and a new earth’: man is not saved from his body but in it; not saved from the material world but with it. Because man is microcosm and mediator of the creation, his own salvation involves also the reconciliation and transfiguration of the whole animate and inanimate creation around him — its deliverance ‘from the bondage of corruption’ and entry ‘into the glorious liberty of the children of God’ (Rom. 8:21). In the ‘new earth’ of the Age to come there is surely a place not only for man but for the animals: in and through man, they too will share in immortality, and so will rocks, trees and plants, fire and water.

Bishop Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, p. 183

« Last Edit: July 29, 2011, 01:43:07 PM by Xenia1918 »

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"O God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, our brothers the animals to whom Thou gavest the earth as their home in common with us..." (from the Prayer of St Basil the Great)

Well, I guess we'll have to wait until the next life to find out for sure. If I get to heaven (pray for me a sinner) and am accompanied by the many dozens of dogs I've cared for over the decades, professionally, as monastic obedience, and at home, I certainly hope there are no doggy squabbles or jealousy!! They'll all want to be up on the couch with me!Apart from God in our lives in the Church, I do feel that having a dog around gives one a sense of calmness and unspeakable joy. I love that avatar with the dog praying next to the child leaning on the bed! Who is it?A dogless dog-loverAdelphi

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Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding. Prov. 23:23.

Men may dislike truth, men may find truth offensive and inconvenient, men may persecute the truth, subvert it, try by law to suppress it. But to maintain that men have the final power over truth is blasphemy, and the last delusion. Truth lives forever, men do not.-- Gustave Flaubert

I wonder if I will see the planaria I kept as a kid. I wonder what size they will be and if the ones I experimented on will still have their two heads?

I think the whole idea of naming and name recognition and the development of personality traits in the interaction of human and animal may be of some significance to your question.

I loved those little guys.

Real question is could they demonstrate their eagerness for your love and did they return it.

I was very fond of a Burmese python many years ago. I called her by name and when I entered her room she could smell me and would push the lid off of her aquarium to get to me. But she had little to no knowledge of who I was other than my scent, and she never knew her name, nor did she respond in any way that would indicate that my handling of her was any different from anyone else who handled her...well...she never bit me, but that says more about my scent and handling in very objective terms than it says about the snake. Cold blooded animals don't respond as do mammals. I don't expect to meet that particular snake in heaven.